American Indian Languages (Abbreviated A), and the Alphabet of the Dialect Atlas of New England (Abbreviated D)

Home , Central vowel, Dental consonant, Labial consonant, Palatal click, Tenseness, Typewriter

CONCORDANCE OF PHONETIC ALPHABETS Robert C. Hollow, Jr. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

A concordance of 3 major phonetic alphabets used in North America is presented and discussed. Those alphabets consid- ered are one used by the International Phonetic Association, one used for American dialectology and one used for American Indian languages. Comparisons are made in terms of vowel symbols, -consonant symbols, secondary segmental- symbols, and diacritic marks. Typewriter equivalents of standard symbols are also given. [phonetics, linguistics, North A.merica, American Indians, phonetic symbols] This paper is a brief concordance of the major phonetic alphabets currently in use by linguists and anthropologists in North America. The alphabets included are the International Phonetic Alphabet (abbreviated I in this paper), the Americanist alphabet used in the transcription of American Indian Languages (abbreviated A), and the alphabet of the Dialect Atlas of New England (abbreviated D). For convenience I have divided the concordance into five sections: 1) Primary Vowel Symbols, 2) Primary Consonant Symbols, 3) Secondary Segmental Symbols, 4) Diacritic Marks, and 5) Typewriter Symbols. The form of I used in this paper is the 1951 revision as fully presented in The Principles of the International Phonetic Association (International Phonetic Association 1957). D is presented and discussed in the Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England (Kurath, Bloch and Hansen 1939). This alphabet is based onI, but includes certain modifications made to facilitate the transcription of American English dialect material. There is no single phonetic alphabet currently in use by students of American Indian Languages, for this reason I have consulted several alternate formu- lations of phonetic alphabets given by scholars in the field, most notably

42 Bloch and Trager (1942), Pike (1947), Trager (1958), and Shipley (1965). In general, I believe that I have selected Americanist symbols which are in fairly common use, and which would be accepted as standard by most workers in the field.

PRIMARY VOWEL SYMBOLS All alphabets consulted represent with letter symbols only voiced oral vowels produced with a pulmonic egressive airstream. These vowels are described in terms of three parameters: vertical tongue position, horizontal tongue position, and lip position. In every case, these parameters are arranged in the form of two overlapping vowel quadrilaterals separated by the parameter of lip position. The lip position parameter has two values: rounded and spread or unrounded. The horizontal tongue position parameter has three values: front, central, and back. The major differences between the various systems consulted is in the number of parameter values recognized for vertical tongue position. I recognized four primary values, but inserts secondary symbols between these posi- tions so that a total of six parameter values is ultimately recognized. Pike (1947) also recognizes six values along this parameter. Bloch and Trager (1942), Trager (1958), and Shipley (1965) add an additional value, making a total of seven. D does not actually represent vowels in terms of parameter values, rather vowels are placed at points within a vowel quadrilateral and prose statements are appended to define the degree of lip rounding associated with each vowel symbol. This makes it difficult to compare D symbols with those of the other systems, and some dis- tortion is inevitable when vowels defined in this way are inserted into a parameter value matrix. Here, as elsewhere in this paper, the reader should consult the original works for a precise definition of symbols. A similar problem arises with the placement of I [a] since it is recommeded

43 in Principles (International Phonetic Association, 1957) that this symbol "be employed to denote any unrounded vowel situated in the interior of the triangle" [i. e. the triangle in the center of the vowel quadrilateral]. In the Table of Vowels [Table II, vowels from A, I, and D are dis- played in terms of seven values for the tongue height parameter. Vowels on the left of each cell are unrounded, those on the right are rounded. Vowel symbols which are placed somewhat arbitrarily are I [a], and D [cf], [V], and [e .

PRIMARY CONSONANT SYMBOLS All alphabets consulted represent with letter symbols only consonants produced with a pulmonic egressive airstream (for a few exceptions see section 3). Consonants are defined in terms of three or four parameters: glottal state, tenseness, place of articulation, and manner of articulation. I and D implicitly use the tenseness parameter which is associated in the symbology with the glottal state parameter (i. e. voiced symbols are implicitly lax, voiceless symbols are implicitly tense). A recognizes tenseness only as a secondary feature represented with diacritics. The following list is a concordance of terms used in Shipley (1965), I and D for the values of the place and manner parameters. Place of Articulation Shipley I D Table bilabial bilabial bilabial bilabial labiodental labiodental labiodental labiodental apico-inter- dental and dental dental dental alveolar apico-post- dental and dental dental dental alveolar apico-alveolar dental and alveolar alveolar alveolar apico -palatal retroflex retroflex retroflex lamino -alveolar palato- alveolo- palato -alveolar alveolar palatal 44 a lveolo- palato- alveolo-palatal palatal alveolar lamino- palatal palatal palatal palatal dorso-palatal advanced velar dorso-velar velar velar velar dorso-post- uvular uvular velar pharyngeal pharyngeal pharyngeal glottal glottal glottal glottal Manner of Articulation Shipley I D Table Stop (oral) Plosive Stop Stop Stop (nasal) Nasal Nasal Nasal Spirant (slit) Fricative Fricative (slit) Spirant (slit) Spirant (groove) Fricative Fricative (rill) Spirant (groove) Spirant (lateral) Lateral Spirant (lateral) Fricative Lateral Lateral Non- Lateral Lateral Fricative Trill Rolled Trill Tap Flapped Flap Flaps and Taps Semi-vowel Continuants and Frictionless Approximant S emi-vowels Continuants In the Table of Consonants (Table II), voiceless symbols are placed on the left Qf each cell, voiced symbols on the right.

SECONDARY SEGMENTAL SYMBOLS The following lists give a selection of some of the most common secondary segmental symbols employed in the I and A alphabets. Description A I Implosive voiced labial consonant 6 5 Implosive voiced dental consonant cf Dental click Palatal click C Lateral click Voiceless affricates [ts] ts or c or 5

45 [tS] t or c t or c [ti] tl or X tL Voiced affricates [dz] dz orX, dz or Z [d5J dzor j d5 orj+ [dl] dl or A Voiceless [w] W w or - DIACRITIC MARKS The following list gives some of the most common diacritic marks classified according to use. C=any consonant, CVd=any voiced consonant, Cvl=any voiceless consonant, V=any vowel, S=any letter symbol. Description A I D Advanced IQ or C< S+ or S V4, C Affricated Cc [e.g. ts] CC [e.g. ts] Cc [e.g. ts] Aspirated C' C' Aspirated Strongly Ch Ch Ch Central Vowel VV Dental C C C Ejective C' C' "C Labialized Sw C, V' Y Lax S Cvd cvd Lowered vv V, Vt V Nasalized y V Non-Syllabic V v Palatized C' C or ( Raised Vowel VA y or V V^ Retracted S or S- V , Retroflex C, Vr V.i or V V Syllabic C Tense Svl cvl Voiced C C C Voiceless S S S A 00 In addition, the A alphabet uses V to represent a front rounded vowel if V is a back rounded vowel symbol and a back unrounded vowel if V is a front unrounded vowel symbol.

46 TYPEWRITER SYMBOLS

For convenience in typing phonetic materials some authors have substituted more easily typed symbols for standard symbols. These substitute symbols are most often used for spirants. The list given below shows the standard I symbol, and the most frequently substituted equivalent.

I Substitute p /3 b d

s 3 z g r n

47 Table I

Cd~~~~~~~~~~~~C H. .~ .U .' .

4 (1) 14, (441 1 m 93 c

-0 V- E d IU I < I AJ W X X e~~kAIn A r.,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. 0

b,O 0 "-49-

bO ~~~~~~~~~~d0~100) '-0

48 Table II TABLE OF CONSONANTS

Jr-4 -N asal ocd - pirants 0A c d II Cd S iI| Av44 4 0|+ 0 0 v | V1 (Groovea '-4 ) .4.1ac ||!)

l | p b l | | t d | t i | | c j | i g | | | ? Stops Ap6

I p 6" |oI|v L~~~~~~~~CD _ _tCdvII :3 _ _ 13| | _ _ | __-__ _ | i|

A m SpirantsSpiranls A o Z S (Slatea) I D

Laterals L I L

Trillstero R -c ~~~~~~~~R

F!aps Ar and I £ *U4R Taps D Approxi- A W mants I; ) rW Note: Secondary articulations are included in 0 49 REFERENCES Bloch, B. and Trager, G. L. 1942 Outline of linguistic analysis. Special Publication of the Linguistic Society of America. Baltimore. International Phonetic Association 1957 Principles of the International Phonetic Association. London. Kurath, H., Bloch, B. and Hansen, M. L. 1939 Handbook of the linguistic geography of New England. Providence. Ladefoged, Peter 1967 Linguistic phonetics. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics No. 6. Los Angeles. Pike, K. L. 1947 Phonemics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Shipley, W. F. 1965 A syllabus for phonological analysis. Berekeley: ASUC Bookstore. Trager, G. L. 1958 Phonetics glossary and tables. Studies in Linguistics Occasional Papers. Ithaca, N.Y.